The Nut Tree

So for mothers day the other month I decided to take the folks for some slap up nosh somewhere different but near to where they live so I found out about a lovely pub near Bicester & Oxford called The Nut Tree http://www.nuttreeinn.co.uk/home.html which is in a lovely village called Murcott & has 1 Michelin star.
We went for Friday lunch & started by having a Campari & a couple of lovely nibbles (I think they were parma ham or prosciutto galettes). We scanned the menu everything sounded delicious & me & ma had to order the 6 course tasting menu, sounded ace! My pa went  for "Risotto of wild mushrooms" & we were shown to our table in a lovely bright room.
We were given some amazing home made bread & an amuse bouche of a soup with a little drizzle of truffle oil which was very tasty, then onto the six courses!

The first to come was "Fillet of Cornish mackerel". It looked wonderful as well as tasting delicious. It came on an onion tart with tapenade, pickled cucumber (which were deliciously tangy) & roasted peppers. The Mackerel was very tasty & went amazingly with the pickled cucumber.


Next up was one of my faves, "Pan fried terrine of pigs head & black pudding"! It was like a block of cake full of meaty pudding sitting on a little bed of sauerkraut, a schmear of piccalilli & there was a little fried quail egg on top which was perfectly cooked. The sauerkraut & piccalilli really set the whole dish alight!


Whilst all this eating was going on for me & my ma, my pa had his "Risotto of wild mushrooms" which was very earthy & had a wonderful mushroom taste. He enjoyed it very much & took a good half hour to eat it. Whilst he was eating his we were given "Roasted fillet of Cornish line caught seabass" It was a wonderful meaty piece of seabass & was served with wilted spinach & what I thought sounded maybe risky but was in actual fact incredible, curried risotto! It wasn't spicy but just had this incredible curried taste that was very moreish. A real winner & a dish that I really want to try again!

Onto the next & last savoury course which was "Roast cannon of Lamb" This was also bloody good. There was a torte of braised lamb shoulder with potato which was so tender & so so tasty. It just melted in the mouth. Under the cannon of lamb was creamed spinach so all in all another wonderful course. If I had to say anything bad about it, there was a few cubes of tomato which I don't think it needed but hardly a complaint.

This meant we were on to our desserts. What came up was one of the most beautiful & tasty desserts I've ever had. It was "Boiled egg & soldier" Obviously we were not sure what to expect until it came but it was a hollowed out egg shell with creme fraiche & vanilla mousse on a little bed of fruit (kiwi) with mango puree squeezed in from the bottom up. It was also served with a brioche perdu (creamy brioche), this was amazingly delicious. They also gave my pa one to which he enjoyed immensely. The staff were amazingly friendly & very kind!

So onto last dessert! We all tried something different, I had "Orange & Vanilla souffle" which was served with a blood orange sorbet. The souffle was light & fluffy & the sorbet was very refreshing. A very good souffle. My pa tried the "Warm chocolate fondant" which came with orange jelly, toasted almonds & cardoman ice cream. I tried a little of all of his & it was equally tasty. I especially enjoyed the cardoman ice cream. My ma had the "Rhubarb & custard" served with vanilla creme brulee & a yorkshire rhubarb sherbert. The brulee was lovely & ma enjoyed it very much.

This was definitely one of the best meals I've had for a while. We also had some lovely glasses of wine & I had a very nice sweet wine but can't remember the names of any I'm afraid. The sommelier was very enthusiastic & helpful. All of the food was absolutely delicious, the service was excellent & friendly & the pub itself has a lovely atmosphere. I will definitely go back, sooner then later though I hope!

Pitt Cue co, Misato, The Pizza Pilgrims & The Four Seasons

Pitt Cue

Working in Soho sometimes can be pretty hard when you're starving! There's just to much choice which is great but you end up taking 20 minutes to decide where you want to go. Here's a few places I've been to over the last month or 2 starting with the Pitt Cue co http://pittcue.co.uk/ .
Since opening there has been a wait of a couple of hours to get in after 7pm & because of the size of the place they don't take bookings. There ribs are supposed to be fantastic & last summer they were selling them out of a van around the South Bank area.

So one day I really fancied a burger & walked by Pitt Cue co only to see they do take out buns! One was a "Pulled Pork bun" & the other a "Beef Brisket bun". I went for the "Beef Brisket" & ran around to Golden square to chow down on the bad boy. The beef was lovely & tender with a lovely sticky BBQ sauce taste, crunchy slaw & pickles & served in a lovely brioche bun. Not soggy at all & scoffed it in a couple of minutes. They don't seem to do take out ribs yet but amazing takeaway & definitely a Friday treat AT £6.50! yumma.

Salad with my mayo

Next onto Misato, couldn't find a website but it's a Japanese restaurant onWardour street, number 11 to be precise. Everytime I walk past there's a huge queue but one evening I walked past & could see a table free so I popped in. Looking at the menu there was the usual thing (sushi & chicken teryiaki don) so wasn't hugely excited but I went for the "Tori Kara Age Rice" which is seasoned deep fried chicken, sort of KFC style but I ordered without the rice & extra salad mainly because I saw someone eating a plate next to me & the rice they served up was immense, enough to feed 2 probably. What I was given was pieces of chicken with a huge plate of salad, lettuce to be precise with 2 cherry tomatoes & the largest amount of mayo I have ever been given or seen on a plate! The chicken was ok but I couldn't eat all of the salad but for £8.50 including a can of lager & service I suppose it's a pretty good deal & that's why it's usually always packed. Good before a large night out!

Pizza from the back of a van

Next up is The Pizza Pilgrims http://www.pizzapilgrims.co.uk/ who make pizzas out of a oven installed in there 3 wheeled van. On the day I went they had 3 flavours Margarita, Nduja (spicy spreadable sausage) & "The Time Out" which had aubergine, black olives & rocket which is what I went for. It was a good size pizza, nice crisp base & good fresh ingredients. I added 50p for some extra chilli so my pizza cost me £6.50. Maybe a little steep I thought but it was very fresh & tasty & I would definitely go back to have the Nduja pizza next time.

Won Tons

Onto the last Restaurant which is in Chinatown called The Four Seasons http://www.fs-restaurants.co.uk/. They have a couple of restaurants around London & have been known for doing great roast duck, char siu & crispy belly pork. Lately though I've been really getting into there"Prawn Won Ton Noodle Soup" which is served in a great sized bowl for 1 & you usually get 6-7 Won Ton's, some Chinese broccoli & a good bit of vermicelli style noodle in a hot broth. I usually chuck in most of the chilli's & sauces that they put on the table & with a pot of tea & with the slices of orange at the end it usually comes in at £8.50. It's a really delicious & warming bowl all for under a tenner with dessert & a drink! Not bad.

Franco Manca

Pizza

So the other month I was living in West Dulwich & popped along to Brixton market for a wander. It's a great market, lot's of little restaurants, fruit & veg stalls & some vintage shops, well worth a little wander on a Friday lunchtime. I was mainly there for pizza & to go somewhere I'd been ages ago with Daisy & wanted to try again & that place was Franco Manca's http://francomanca.co.uk/.
It's set in one part of the indoor market & get's pretty busy at lunch time. They have a wood burning brick oven & make a damn fine pizza with it.

I went simple & tasty & had the "Tomato, Galic & Oregano" pizza with a lovely glass of Montepulciano d'Abbruzzo red wine (region my dad's from) & scoffed away! The crust is lovely & crispy in the right places & what I like about this pizza is that it's not so heavy because no cheese.  One very good pizza & one of many good reasons to go to Brixton. Oh & cost around £7 which I thought was good for a pizza & glass of red!

Mishkins & The Brass Rail

Dumpling

So the other Sunday me & my friend Jason were in the Covent Garden area feeling a little peckish for a snack rather then a full blown meal so we popped along to Mishkins, http://mishkins.co.uk/?referrer=true "A kind of Jewish Deli" as they call themselves. It was around 4 in the afternoon so they didn't have the full menu on, to late for lunch & to early for dinner.

They had a couple of things we wanted to try & I went for the "Chicken matzo ball soup" & a Strawberry malted milkshake. The matzo ball is a Jewish dumpling in soup & in general the soup was pretty tasty. Pretty simple I suppose, a few bits of carrot & chicken here & there but was nice & warming & a good snack. The milkshake was not bad to.

Jason tried the "Severn & Wye lox beigel with house schmear" & went for a chocolate malted milkshake. As beigels go it was very tasty salmon with cream cheese & served with a perfectly cooked runny egg. Not sure if it was better then a beigel on brick lane but very tasty & I believe the chocolate shake was good to.

Banana pud

Had to try a dessert so we went for the "Bananas foster" which is bananas cooked with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, rum & then vanilla ice cream scooped on top. It was pretty damn tasty & me & Jason had actually created something like this before but didn't know it actually had a name. Basically it was a comfort dessert, boozy & stodgey, in a good way.

Mishkins is a pretty cool place, you can sit at the bar as well & they do nice looking cocktails. Service was a little slow & maybe disorganized but friendly & I really want to go back to try there "Reuben on rye" which they apparently toast. The Reuben is not always which brings me to....

The Brass Rail at Selfridges! I went there with Tony (my bro) to try out there Reuben. A Reuben is basically salt beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, gherkin & Russian dressing. It's a whopper of a sandwich!

The Reuben!

It's been a famous spot in Selfridges food hall for a long time & we queued up with our tray & ordered a Reuben on rye bread each, I believe they usually serve it on sourdough bread but Tony explained how heavy & large it is, so the main carver who has been there over 33 years apparently, carved us up a Reuben on rye.

It was so big that I had to split the sandwich in half. It was tasty, the salt beef moist & the sauerkraut tangy & sweet. It did need some sort of punch so we ended up smearing loads of sachets of Colmans English mustard on. Overall very tasty & very large, though you can definitely share it with someone rather then getting a whole one each. It was a struggle to finish so had to leave the bread & just eat the contents. Mishkins for the Reuben next I think...

Assaggi

Assaggi is a Italian restaurant above a lovely looking pub on Chepstow road in West London (near Portobello, Queensway & Notting Hill). I had been a couple of times with my ma & pa back in the day & always had pretty much excellent meals, in fact at one point I thought it was the best Italian restaurant in London. It had 1 Michelin star but lost it a couple of years ago & for what ever reason I hadn't been there for ages , so.......

I booked a night to go with Tony, my bro who lives around the corner & was looking forward to going back. It's quite a small space so you do have to book usually & on the night we went it was pretty packed. We ordered a nice white wine & had some bread brought out, they do "Carta di Musica" a sardinian flat bread, then were shown the menus! Tony was immediately not happy as the whole menu was in Italian (I think it was the last time I went but never had a problem before). I can understand some Italian ok but everything is translated by a waitress. As said the room is quite small & very busy so it was really hard to hear everything clearly & as Tony said by the time we got to the bottom he had forgotten what was at the top. "Poncey" & "Disgrace" was just some of the words to come out of Tony so could tell it was going to be one of those sorts of nights. He even texted his friends who had been there recently to ask them for any pointers.

Basically I ordered & Tony said he would have exactly the same as whatever I was having so for starters we had "Lamb sweetbread with some red onions, leaf & some pancetta & a nice sweet balsamic sort of dressing". The sweetbread was very tender & quite tasty though Tony thought it was pretty bland but ok.

For mains we had the "Fritto Misto" which is a selection of fried fish (Prawns, Calamari & red mullet I think) which I've had in Italy many times & also the previous time in Assaggi which I've always loved but this time it seemed a little bland & boring. It also came with very thin crisps/chips which equally were not that enjoyable. The fish seemed fresh & ok but just had no wow or spark of any kind. Tony thought the same & basically said if he wanted fish & chips we should have gone to a proper chippy!

Onto desserts which went down very badly with Tony. The dessert menu was in English! Tony pointed this out to a couple of the bemused waiters & waitresses & asked why the main menu is in Italian & the dessert menu was in English. Not much of an answer back & a little bit of ranting then we got on with ordering. I had a Panna cotta with an espresso poured on top & Tony had a Tiramisu. The Panna cotta was nice & the Tiramisu was ok & we quaffed a couple of brandies with them which probably made them taste better then they probably were.

As we left there was a few more rants by my bro to the staff about the menu & for being to be poncey & the fact he didn't like the food to much. He also threatened to pee through there letterbox so I had to drag him away (Possibly to much wine & brandy I think) & sometime later that night after I left he phoned them up, there answer machine was in English, which riled him up so much he left a abusive message about how rubbish he thought the restaurant to be & that he would never go back! I think there was worse said but probably best not to write! So anyways a pretty bad experience & probably wont/can't ever go back.

Benoit, Le Chartier & Terminus Nord

The benoit salad!

Me & my folks for a Christmas prezzy decided to go for a new year trip to Paris for a few days so I booked lunch at Benoit, a Michelin starred Alain Ducasse bistro, http://www.benoit-paris.com/ which looked rather tasty. They do a 3 course 36 Euro lunch menu which thought sounded rather good.
It's very classic looking inside with a nice buzzing atmosphere & we are shown to a lovely table in a corner so we can see the whole restaurant. I ordered a caraffe of dry white wine which was quite small & pretty expensive I thought at 40 Euros but tasted nice & we were given a little snack of 6 Cheese galette balls which went down very well. I had to ask our waiter for the lunch menu as he had "forgotten" & we ordered!

I ordered for starter the "Saucisson brioche, mache et vinaigrette truffee" which was sausage meat with pistachios surrounded in brioche served with a little side salad (see main photo). It was parfait & delicious! My ma had the "Salade Benoit" which was a meat feast of duck, chicken, pork, Mushrooms & eggs which was excellent & my pa had the "Veloute de topinambours et royale de fois grois" which was cream of artichoke with some lardons & a bit of foie gras thrown in. He ate it pretty fast & didn't say to much so I think he liked it quite a lot.

The Bomb!

On to mains, I went for "Lieu jaune roti, choux braises et au vin d'arbois" which was the bomb! It was roast pollack served on a stuffed cabbage with vegetables & a wine sauce/gravy. It was really delicious, tender & flavoursome! I could of ate it again.
Ma went for "Longe de cochon fermier cuisinee en cocotte, gratin de potiron au jus" which was a slab of pork with a pumpkin gratin. I had a bite & it was pretty tasty but the pork was slightly overcooked.
Pa had "Tranche de boudin noir risolee aux deux pommes" which was black pudding with mash, raw apple & a cooked apple! I had a bite to & the black pudding was lovely & spicy & the mash was really creamy. Quite a winner.

The Bomb of desserts!

So onto the really incredible desserts! My pa started chatting to the maitre d' as my dad is a pastry chef & trained in Lausanne & basically likes all things sweet. The Maitre d' liked this & said we could order desserts of the a la carte menu! Pretty pretty sweet! I went stright in & ordered the "Souffle glace a l'orange et au Grand-Marnier" which was cold orange souffle with lovely spongey cake in the middle with loads of Grand Marnier poured on top! The waiter left the Grand-Marnier on the table & when he left I poured a lot more on. It really was amazing! Possibly best dessert for quite a few years & I ate the lot. It was large to.
Ma had "Nougat glace pistache/passion" which was nougat ice cream with pistachio & passion fruit obviously which was beautiful to look at & pretty tasty & my dad had the "Millefueille classique" which had crumbly pastry & looked very good. We had a lovely red dessert wine with this & at the end after we paid the bill one of the waiters gave us free coffee, madeleines & chocolates! Definitely good excuse to go back & try it again, a lovely restaurant & lovely staff!

Frisee

Whilst I'm waffling about Paris, we also had a lovely meal at "Le Chartier" http://www.restaurant-chartier.com/www/visit/filsdesans.php, a real busy & atmospheric restaurant & very well priced! The waiters are pretty rude but it's all quite fun & I had a lovely steak & chips with garlic butter & a starter of frisee salad with lardons (only 3 Euros) & a nice & simple peach melba. Get there early, it get's really busy!

Yummy

And the last was "Terminus Nord" http://www.terminusnord.com/fr,  exactly opposite Gare du Nord station, a beautiful art deco restaurant with lot's of seafood as well as all the classics. I had some snails here followed by another steak (Pretty filling  weekend), with Bernaise sauce this time & we all shared a il flotante which was delicious. Even saw Juliette Binoche in there!
Thanks to Matt & Anne for Le Chartier & Terminus Nord recommendations!

Yauatcha

Lobster

Hello everybody! Been a while I'm afraid due to writers block & general laziness but raring to go with some new foody items! First off is Yauatcha on Broadwick street, http://www.yauatcha.com/soho/. It's a contemporary Michelin starred Dim sum restaurant & pretty tasty I hasten to add. It's also one my brothers favourite restaurants so we go quite a lot!
Me & Tony (my bro) bowled up on the 2nd of January so fairly quiet. We were shown to a pretty lame table right by a column so we asked to be moved to which we were given 2 different tables to choose from. Not a problem you might think, but quite integral to the plot for later.

We started on a couple of alcoholic grape cocktails. Not much flavour but definitely one of those drinks that creeps up on you then ordered what I have to say was incredibly fine food.

We started with "Crab shuimai, Lobster spinach dumpling, Chilli fried squid & Chicken taro croquette". The croquette was lovely & crispy on the outside, just like a yam paste dumpling from other old school dim sum restaurants! The Lobster was juicy & tender & the fried squid tender & perfectly cooked. Wasn't sure about the crab dumpling, only in the sense I thought it tasted of mackerel & didn't even realise I was eating crab until the waiter said so! But I still ate it so couldn't of been that bad.

Mongolian Venison

Then we moved on to the main dishes which were "Mongolian venison" which was so tender & tasty, "Steamed Halibut" which was really spicy & invigorating! We had some "Pak choi with garlic" as a side & I had a "Yebisu" beer which is a lovely Japanese beer.
So far all very good & possibly one of the best meals that me & Tony have had there. For dessert I had a "Raspberry delice". Not only did it look beautiful but it tasted delice-ous. Chocolate & biscuit going on inside, one of my favourite desserts I've ate there. I think Tony had a "Milk chocolate praline", I can't remember because mine was so good but he said his was good.

Delice-ous

We followed these up with 2 Irish coffees which were very nice & seeing as we were having a nice time decided to order 2 more. It was then that we were told we had to move tables because a previous booking that had cancelled had now decided to turn up! Tony didn't take it to well which I thought was fair enough & said that if we were to move then they should take the service charge off the bill. A couple of minutes later a waiter said this was fine, so we moved to a different table & then basically Tony thought we should leave anyway. There was a bit of an heated debate about the whole of the moving issue with a Maitre'D & a couple of the waiters & I heard Tony saying it was a disgrace a few times seeing as we are regular customers. We then left & Tony popped back in to have a go again whilst I hid outside a column so I don't think we will be going back for a while. Overall though the food is amazing but they really do try & feed you & get you out as soon as possible which can be a little stressful when it's not that busy & you're spending money! Oh & I did notice they do a £28.88 tasting menu for 2 People with 8 dishes & tea, Mon-Thurs 2pm until 630pm!